The present disclosure relates to spacecraft batteries. In particular, it relates to spacecraft with anti-nadir battery radiator(s). The term “nadir”, when referred to a spacecraft such as a satellite, typically refers to an earth-facing portion of the spacecraft, which may be oriented towards the centripetal direction of the earth and in a direction typically opposite the Zenith. Hence, as used herein, the term “anti-nadir” refers to a face, side, panel, and/or portion of a spacecraft that is located away from the direction of the orbit, in the direction of the Zenith, such as a portion of a satellite that faces away from an orbited planet.
Currently, many spacecraft mount their spacecraft batteries on the north and south sides of the spacecraft along with north and south facing battery radiators. This existing solution has several disadvantages. The first disadvantage is that the existing solution requires a dedicated battery support structure to support the batteries. A second disadvantage is that, for the existing solution, the batteries consume north and south facing acreage, which is needed by the payload. A third disadvantage is that this existing solution creates thermal gradients between the various battery cells because the thermal environment on the spacecraft north side differs from the south side due to different sun exposures on the batteries. The present disclosure mitigates all the above-mentioned disadvantages of the existing solution, while minimizing the part count and structural mass related to integrating the batteries to the satellite.